


Fly Trap

by TheFandomLesbian



Series: Spencer's Raulson One-Shots [53]
Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse, American Horror Story: Coven
Genre: Angst, Attempted Sexual Assault, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Foxxay is already married, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Madison and Misty friendship, Madison finally gets the redemption arc she was owed in Coven, foxxay - Freeform, good!Madison, goodeday, raulson - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:14:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23225410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFandomLesbian/pseuds/TheFandomLesbian
Summary: After an inflammatory argument with Cordelia, Misty storms out of the room and runs into Madison, who invites her to a club to try to drown her sorrows. There, they commit homicide, and a new friendship is forged.
Relationships: Madison Montgomery & Cordelia Foxx | Cordelia Goode, Misty Day & Madison Montgomery, Misty Day/Cordelia Foxx | Cordelia Goode
Series: Spencer's Raulson One-Shots [53]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1214643
Comments: 12
Kudos: 58





	Fly Trap

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write this for ages, but I knew it was going to be long, so I squeezed two dialogue prompts in: "I've never loved someone this much before" and "I can't do anything right."

It was a quiet night, the girls in the coven house unusually reserved, if for only one reason: the walls echoed with the sounds of Cordelia and Misty screaming at each other. 

They rarely fought. In fact, tonight was completely unprecedented. Their previous arguments ensued with quiet voices, a few hours of giving each other space, and makeup sex. But tonight was different. Misty had caught two of the young witches beating an injured stray cat with sticks and using it to practice spells, and when Cordelia had found her, she had them both hanging upside down from the tree in the backyard, using them as her own personal pinatas with a baseball bat while the wholly healed cat groomed his greasy fur and looked on. Misty’s inexorable sense of justice had amused everyone before, but now, as the two students recovered from their wounds in their respective bedrooms, the Supreme and her wife raised their voices so the house trembled with the force of their enraged magics. 

“You  _ completely _ overreacted! You should have  _ called me _ when you found them! What is the matter with you, Misty? By god, we’re responsible for keeping these girls safe, and you’re going around  _ beating them _ like it’s the eighteen hundreds!” 

“I gave them  _ exactly _ what they deserved!” Misty shouted back, her hackles rising. Wind ripped around the room. “They were torturing an innocent animal! They had to learn their lesson!” The aforementioned innocent animal was looking very clean, for Misty had taken the time to give him a bath while Cordelia healed the two injured girls and placed them in confinement in their rooms. He now rested in between their two pillows, green eyes flicking between the two of them. 

Cordelia scoffed, “Learn their lesson? You’re going to teach them that hitting is wrong by hitting them yourself? Every child psychologist in the world disagrees with what you did!”

“I ain’t looking for the advice of no scientists! I’m looking to punish a couple of little snot-nosed bitches so they think twice about  _ ever _ laying a cross hand on an animal again! I don’t want them to be all goody two shoes—I don’t believe that can happen. I just want them to be afraid enough of me that they’ll never dare to act like that again!” 

Cordelia gawped at her in horror. “Stop calling our students swear words! They’re children, Misty, for god’s sake! You can teach them to do better! My god, you can—you can make them volunteer at an animal shelter! You can take them on wildlife adventures! You can  _ show them _ what they did was wrong so they know  _ why  _ in the future! All you did was hurt them.”

Misty’s temper flared hot. “Yeah, you want me to drag them on adventures where they’ll have access to  _ more _ animals to hurt? Let me just drop them off at the humane society and see how many animals they can torture there! Yeah, while we’re at it, let me adopt some, so they have free rein right here at home to learn their magic on the animals!” Cordelia opened her mouth, but Misty cut her off. “My daddy beat me whenever I went out in the road, and you bet your ass I  _ never _ got hit by a car! I run off and stayed the night at my girlfriend’s house without permission, he kicked the shit out of me in front of her and her  _ whole _ family! He did what he had to do to keep me safe!”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Misty, that’s  _ Stockholm syndrome! _ You were  _ abused! _ Hitting a child is  _ abusive _ , no matter what kind of spin you put on it! I love you, and it kills me that you think this kind of behavior is okay! Why do you want to continue the cycle? You have a chance to be  _ better! _ ”

“Because you think I can’t do anything right!” Misty snapped. She drew herself up tall. “You’re  _ always _ going to take their side instead of mine, because I’m just some shit teacher you married to keep the bed warm at night, and those little psychopaths you’re harboring can do no wrong!” The curtains rushed back and forth with the force of her telekinesis coming forward outside of her control. “I know I’m just a placeholder for your fucking perfect life! What are you going to do when those brats are tired of animals? What are you going to do when they decide to kill you instead? They’re bloodthirsty and power hungry, and they’re going to want to be the Supreme someday. Are you gonna coddle them all the way through murdering you, too?” 

Cordelia flinched. “If I nurture them now, they’ll have no need to ever hurt me! Wouldn’t you have been better off if somebody had loved you as a child instead of attacking you whenever you made a wrong move? Do you honestly think being  _ beaten _ instead of having things explained to you helped you in the long run?”

Misty’s anger boiled over. The window swung open. “You know what? It’s goddamn good thing you couldn’t get pregnant. You would’ve been a damn doormat of a mother!” 

She had pressed the wrong button. “At least I wouldn’t have been in prison for  _ abusing our children! _ ” Cordelia shrieked in return. A vase exploded. Neither one of them knew which one’s magic had done it. But the sound startled them both into silence, appreciating for the first time how unusually quiet the house was. They stared at each other in the quiet, each waiting for the other to make the next move or say the next fiery word. Misty grabbed her purse and whirled around. “Misty, wait.” Cordelia’s voice already held an apology, her eyes growing tearful. She reached out to grab Misty’s wrist. 

Slapping her hand away, Misty’s eyes had a teary sheen. “Don’t touch me.”

“Where are you going?” 

She slipped into her boots. “I gotta get out of here before one of us hurts the other one.” She held tight to her purse. “I’ll be back tonight.” Cordelia reached for her again, but Misty slammed the door in her face. The weight of it echoed through the whole upstairs of the house. 

Misty whipped toward the stairs, nearly running over Madison. “Whoa, there, swampy.” Madison held up her hands. “What the hell is going on between you two? You never fight.” Misty scowled, trying to pass by her. The last thing she wanted was to deal with Madison’s stupid, bitchy, Hollywood nonsense right now. She needed to get  _ away _ , and Madison would only serve to make her angrier.  _ And Cordelia really will blow a gasket if I end the night by throwing somebody down the stairs.  _ Misty drummed down the stairs, but to her great horror… Madison  _ followed _ her. “Misty!” she snapped, her name sharp. 

Pausing on the landing, Misty turned back on her heel to glare up at Madison. “What the hell do you want, Maddie? I’m not exactly in the mood to entertain tonight.” 

Madison placed a hand on the rail and followed her down the stairs, stopping on the landing alongside her. “Well, I’m the only person brave enough to interact with you or Cordelia after what we all just heard through the walls, so I’ve been elected to give the council report.” Misty rolled her eyes and spun to leave again, but Madison caught her by the sleeve. “Wait. C’mon, you’re not going anywhere alone when you’re this pissed.”

“I’m not looking for company,” Misty grated through clenched teeth. 

“I. Wasn’t. Asking.” Madison’s voice clipped each syllable, leaving no room for argument, and as much as Misty wanted to transmute away and deal with the consequences later, she also didn’t want to deal with the whole council and Cordelia blowing up her phone asking where she had gone and why and when she would be back. 

She did not realize, yet, that she had left her phone in the center of their bed. 

Madison took her keys. “Come on. We’re going to go get drunk.” She brushed by Misty as she walked down the stairs, leading the way, and with a grumbled sigh of irritation, Misty pursued her, head hanging low and hands balled into sharp fists. “You’ll stumble home, drunk as a skunk, have good sex with Cordelia, and tomorrow, everything will be alright.” 

_ I’m afraid it won’t be. _ Misty averted her eyes. “Yeah, whatever.” She wasn’t about to start disclosing any of her relationship struggles with Madison of all people. The only person who ever heard her insecurities was  _ Cordelia herself _ , for Misty didn’t believe in involving third parties in their relationship. But sometimes, she found it so difficult to tell Cordelia the way she was feeling.  _ I never should have shouted any of that stuff at her.  _ Fury burbled inside of her, at herself and at Cordelia and at the damn students who had caused the mess. She was  _ right. _ She was well within her rights to beat the everloving hell out of those girls. Cordelia hadn’t seen what she had seen when she found them tormenting the poor cat, already near death when they started jabbing at it and practicing their burn spells on it.  _ Abusive would’ve been setting them on fire like they were trying to do to the cat.  _ Even Misty wouldn’t go that far. She had been burned alive. She would never wish it on anyone else. 

The cold night air curled around her. She crawled into the passenger seat of Madison’s car. Madison lit a cigarette and offered it to her. She shook her head. “For the record,” Madison said as she cranked the car and lowered the windows, “I think you’re right.” Misty blinked over at her. “Most people won’t learn unless you hurt them. That’s what I’ve learned. And some people won’t learn even then.” 

Sullen blue eyes moved back to the night sky. “I didn’t ask for your opinion,” she whispered. Her throat was hoarse from yelling. “Do you have anything to drink?” Madison reached into her purse and pulled out a flask. Misty hesitated. “What is it?” she dared to ask. 

“It’s straight vodka. Just don’t puke all over my car.” Misty took it and took a deep drink. It scalded. She wanted to spit. She wanted to vomit. She kept swallowing. Madison was being generous with her, and she didn’t want to ruin it by doing the one thing she was asked not to do. After the first gulp, the second went down a little easier, and the third easier than that. “Whoa, okay there, Swampy, we’re not even at the bar yet.” 

Lowering it from her lips, Misty recapped it and wiped her mouth sloppily. “R-Right. Sorry.” Her hands held a slight tremor. The vodka had not helped her sore throat even slightly. But within a few minutes, she felt less angry and hurt than before, lighter and happier. She licked her lips. “Thank you, Maddie.” 

“Don’t thank me yet. You can thank me tomorrow, when you and Cordelia are over whatever the hell that just was.” Madison pulled up in the parking lot of a club and shifted the car into park. She took her phone out of her purse. “So how would you describe the service I have provided you so far tonight? Queenie wants to know.” 

Misty climbed out of the car. “Turn that shit off.” She peeked in her own purse, wondering why she hadn’t heard her phone ring, only to realize she didn’t have her phone at all. “Good. I left mine at the house. Nobody can bother me now.” Cordelia hated it when Misty made herself unreachable, but this was genuinely an accident—a happy accident for Misty, who could think of nothing more annoying than having the whole coven pester her digitally right now, but an accident nonetheless. “Tell them I’ll give my reviews tomorrow morning.”

“You’re going to be hungover tomorrow morning. You’re not going to remember anything. You should tell them all about my quality service right now—Okay, wait up.” Madison hopped out of the car, slamming the door behind her and locking it. “Have you ever been into one of these places before?” Misty shook her head. She hadn’t. She had scarcely been into a handful of calm bars, and those instances had happened years ago, when she was newly twenty-one and still found drinking to be a novelty. “Well—be careful, okay? Watch your drink.” 

The door swung open, and an ocean of sounds and lights and general unpleasantries washed over Misty from head to toe. She flinched back from the intense stimulus, but Madison had her by the elbow and dragged her into the building.  _ I’d much rather get drunk out of that flask in the car than set foot in this place. _ She couldn’t think of the words to say that as she used her hands to shield her eyes from the bright lights. Instead, she stumbled along after Madison into the flashing darkness and the overwhelming stenches of vomit and smoke and more types of liquor than she ever wanted to try. 

Unlike Misty, Madison seemed to have no problem navigating the deluge of human vulgarities, and she pushed right into the crowd toward the bar, all the way at the other side of the building. Misty had no choice but to trot to keep up with her, narrowly avoiding her body connecting with the other grinding, hot bodies in the center of the building. At the bar, Madison pushed Misty up onto a stool. “Here.” Misty was bewildered as she looked at Madison and around the room. “It’s a lot, isn’t it?” 

Misty rubbed her eyes with her hands. “I…” She shook her head. “I don’t like it here.”

“We’re only here to get wasted. Then we’ll go home.”

“But we won’t be able to drive.” 

Madison snorted. “Oh, you poor, prudish soul.” She waved over the bartender. “I’ll have a Long Island Iced Tea, and she’ll have anything that will get her drunk and still taste good. She had a shit night, so put a cute umbrella in it or something.”  _ This does not seem like the type of place I want to get drunk.  _ Misty didn’t drink very often—she found it an unbecoming habit—so she was not well-versed in any of these arts. But this place had a dark, telling aura, and it made her want to keep her wits about her. She looked questioningly at Madison, but Madison was at ease.  _ Well, she knows this type of place better than I do.  _ Whether or not she liked it, regardless of if it were a good idea, she did trust Madison. And she would do just about anything to get her argument with Cordelia off of her mind right now. 

The drink the bartender brought her was sparkling and blue, and she took a long sip out of it. “This is actually pretty good.” It didn’t burn like the vodka she had drunk in the car, so she sucked it right down through the pretty straw and played with the umbrella, spinning it between her fingertips. “It’s like a snowcone for adults.”

Madison snorted. “Keep telling yourself that.” She downed her iced tea and waved for another one. “Do you want food? So you can layer up, absorb the alcohol.”

“Why the hell would I want to  _ absorb _ the alcohol?” Misty slurped through the straw, nothing but ice and an empty sound at the bottom, and she pouted at how quickly it had disappeared. “Anything I eat now is just going to reappear in front of Cordelia later, and I’d rather not give her another reason to hate me right now.”

“Oh my god, she doesn’t  _ hate you. _ ” Working with surprising expediency, the bartender brought them two more drinks, an odd look on his face at the speed with which they had consumed their orders. “Cordelia loves you. It’s super gross, but it’s true. She wouldn’t do half the shit she does if it weren’t for loving you. Strawberry cream cheese? The rest of us hate that shit! But Cordelia buys it because that’s the kind  _ you _ like.” 

Misty stared, forlorn, at the grain of the bar. “Well, I don’t think any kind of cream cheese can change some of the things I said to her.” She picked absently at the underside of the bar and touched fresh gum. “Oh my god! Ew! Ew!” She hastily wiped her hands off on her dress, and Madison reached into her purse to give her some hand sanitizer. “This place is gross. Why did we come here?” 

“You once went more than a month without showering, but  _ this _ place is gross?” Madison took another long sip from her tall drink. “We’re here to get fucked up. We’ll go once we have succeeded.” 

“Nobody leaves their gum all over the swamp,” Misty muttered, wiping off her hands. She started on the second fruity, blue drink. She loved blue raspberry flavoring. So when the second one disappeared, she waited for a third, vision already going blurry and crossed.  _ I should slow down a little bit.  _ Ultimately, coming home wasted would not aid her relationship with Cordelia, but she needed to forget for a little while. She needed to stop feeling while she was here. 

A handsome young man approached Madison from behind and began to chat with her. Misty glanced over her shoulder to find Madison staring back at her. “Go ahead,” she mumbled thickly. “I’ll be right here.” She didn’t want to dance with anyone, least of all a man. She just wanted Cordelia to be happy with her again.  _ Bullshit. I want those girls expelled. I want my fucking cat.  _ Maybe she should just take her cat and go live in the swamp where she knew she was safe and happy and leave Cordelia to deal with the mess she had created. If Cordelia didn’t want her to  _ abuse _ girls, she didn’t have to.  _ I can leave. I don’t have to stay.  _

She would never leave. Cordelia made her too lovesick and happy for her to ever dream of doing anything else. It was just a fight. They would recover. But this was the worst fight they had had so far, and it made her belly hurt to think that it could happen again.  _ They got what they deserved,  _ argued one piece of her brain, while another replied,  _ I should’ve just let Cordelia handle it. She’s the Supreme.  _ She rested her chin in her hand, staring morosely at the opposite wall, where she began to read the signs there. None of them said anything interesting. 

A man sank onto the stool beside her. “Hey.” Misty grunted a vague response, not entirely sure he was talking to her. “Hey.” He touched her arm. She snapped around at him. “Whoa! Calm down.” Narrowing her eyes at him, she scanned the man, his dark hair and dark eyes and his coy grin. “I thought you looked a little lonely. I saw your friend leave you. You’re just sitting around here by yourself?” 

“What does it look like to you?” Misty had no intentions of being friendly with any males tonight—or any females, either. Madison had a pass because they were friends, but these strangers? They didn’t deserve anything from Misty, and she wasn’t going to give them anything, either. “I’m drinking alone because I want to  _ be _ alone. Scram.”

He tilted his head. “Nobody wants to be alone,” he argued. “And nobody comes to the club to drink alone.”

Misty rolled her eyes. “I’m only here because she forced me.”  _ I was going to go somewhere.  _ Misty wasn’t sure where, though. Probably the swamp. “Really, I just want to be left alone,” she said again, hoping the man would take the hint. 

He didn’t. “She dragged you here and now she’s ditching you for some dick? Lame. Let me buy you a drink.” He lifted his hand to wave the bartender over. 

_ You’ve got to be kidding me.  _ Misty dropped her left hand on the bar in front of the man and, in the least subtle way possible, drummed her wedding ring against the grain of the wood. “I’ve already got a drink. I’m all set with it. Thanks.”  _ Please go bother some other sucker, preferrably one who is heterosexual and single and would appreciate this attention. _

But he persevered, leaning closer to her. His breath smelled like stale chips. Misty looked away and stared at the opposite wall.  _ Maybe if I just ignore him, he’ll go away. _ The heat from his body threatened to press into hers. “Maybe we can talk and I can get to know you some more. C’mon, pretty please?” Misty kept the back of her head turned to him. “My name is Brad…” He tried to lead her into the conversation. “I’m an engineer. I love dogs and hiking and hunting.”

Misty took her drink and pulled it across the bar, closer to herself.  _ I need alcohol to deal with this fucker.  _ She regretted leaving the house. She’d been pissed at Cordelia, but this was just downright irritating. Sticking the pretty straw in her mouth, she sucked.  _ It tastes different now.  _ She swallowed again, just to make sure.  _ It’s salty.  _ It hadn’t been salty before. Had the bartender salted the rim of the glass or something? She wasn’t sure. “I’m married,” she hurled at the man, since tapping her wedding ring boldly in front of him was not getting her very far. “And I think killing innocent animals is the worst thing a person can do with their life, an expensive waste of time and energy. So fuck. Off.” 

The world spun a little bit.  _ I really drank too much.  _ She snarled at Brad as he put a hand on the small of her back. “Well, being married doesn’t have to stop anything…” He flashed a tiny smile. She wanted to wipe that smile off of his face, but her arm suddenly did not want to move. A tingling numbness rushed down her limbs. Her fingertips felt fat.  _ What the hell? _ she wondered. He didn’t take his hand off of her back. “We could have fun together, just you and me. He never has to find out.”

“Who’s  _ he? _ ” Misty’s voice was thick and slurred.  _ I should go find Madison and get the hell out of here.  _ Whatever was happening to her, it had to be something that Madison knew how to deal with; after all, she had the most experience dealing with substances. 

Brad grinned. “Your husband, of course.” 

“I’m a fucking dyke, you pervert.” Misty’s voice washed in and out like the ocean. She couldn’t hear herself, and she dazedly wondered if all of the words she was saying actually made it out of her mouth, or if they died somewhere in her throat. “My wife…” She couldn’t think of how she wanted to finish that sentence, except that she was starting to get scared and she wished Cordelia was here.

“You know, you’re not looking so good. Let’s take you outside and get you some fresh air.” He grabbed her around the waist and heaved her off of the stool, and she could not manage a protest. She tried to flounder her limbs, but she was as gangly and uncoordinated as a newborn fawn trying to find its feet for the first time. “You just need to see the sky.” His face hazed in front of her.  _ Oh, boy, am I going to kick your ass when this is over.  _ She did not know when it was going to be over, though, and with each passing moment, her fear increased. He hauled her over to a side door and nudged it open with his shoulder. 

Misty ripped away from him the moment the cold air touched her face, but it didn’t sober her enough to send all of her impulses to her limbs, and she fell down the cement stairs. He trotted down the stairs after her. “Come back here, you stupid slut.” The kindness and coyness had all left him now, and he pounced at her. 

Arms whipping out in front of her, live flames fired from the palms of her hands, right at him. “Jesus Christ!” He stumbled back, away from her, blinded by the light and the roar of the fire. 

In a mighty leap, Madison flung herself on top of him, a steak knife as long as her arm grasped in her hand. She stabbed him in the abdomen, in the chest, in the throat, blood spraying from him over Misty’s panicked, still body and her dress. She watched in horror, mouth hanging open. The man careened, unable to right himself as he folded under Madison’s weight and landed upon his knees. She rolled him over onto his back and stabbed him again and again and again, leaving no part of him untouched, until he ceased his struggle and all of the twitching protests subsided. His corpse rested in a puddle of his blood. Madison straddled him with a frenzied look. The crimson had left no part of her untouched, her face and her hands and her beautiful blue dress. It trickled down her wrists to her elbows. She clutched the knife above her head, waiting for the attempted rapist to make another move. 

“Jesus Christ,” Misty repeated in awe. Pushing herself up off of the ground, she staggered, but all of the feeling rushed back to her digits. Adrenaline flushed the drowsy feeling away from her. 

“I told you,” Madison grunted between sharp, short pants of breath, “to watch. Your fucking. Drink.” Misty leaned with her hand against the wall, but as Madison made no attempt to get up off of the body, she stumbled forward and offered her a hand. Madison took it, and Misty tugged her away from the corpse. “Are you okay?” she asked as a dim afterthought, admiring her handiwork from beside Misty. 

Misty swallowed hard. “Cordelia is going to  _ kill _ us,” she said faintly. If Cordelia had been upset about what happened with the students, she would be  _ furious _ when two of her witches were sentenced with murder.  _ Especially since one of them is her wife.  _ She glanced around. “Are there cameras out here?” 

With an explosion of plastic and glass, several lenses shattered and batteries fell pieces. “Not anymore. Cordelia never has to find out.”

Misty ogled at her. “I am not going to  _ lie _ to my wife about what just happened!”

Madison rolled her eyes. “People lie to their wives all the time!”

“But I don’t!” Misty’s body tensed. “Okay. Okay. Let’s drag him behind that dumpster, where nobody can see, and I can fix him. I’ll fix him, we can wipe his memory, we clean up this mess, and then I’ll tell Cordelia the truth!”

“You are not going to  _ fix  _ him! Do you know what he was going to do to you?” 

“We can’t just leave a dead man in the alley for somebody to find him tomorrow! People have seen us! They’ll figure out it was us! We have to fix him!” 

“I’m not letting you fix a rapist!”

“Cordelia—”

“ _ Cordelia _ is the least helpful person you can even mention right now, okay? I know from experience. I’m not letting you bring back this guy just so he can go on to rape more women and Cordelia can go on not caring about what just happened to us.”

Misty froze. “What the hell are you talking about?” Her eyebrows drew together. She didn’t like Madison talking bad about Cordelia. That was her  _ wife,  _ dammit, and she wouldn’t have anyone bad mouthing her, no matter how furious she was. “Cordelia can set this right.”

“No, she can’t.” Madison picked up the corpse by his ankles. “Okay. I’m going to drag this asshole behind the dump, and then I’m going to pull the car around. We put him in the trunk and we take him somewhere and bury him where no one will ever find him.” Misty glowered at Madison. “I’ll explain when we are no longer in danger of being found at the scene of a homicide, okay? So will you help me or not?”

Picking him up by his wrists, Misty helped her scoot the heavy corpse behind the dump. “Wait here. Stay out of sight. I’ll be right back.” 

Minutes later, Madison pulled the car around, backing down into the alley. She popped the trunk, and Misty came out, dragging the man across the glassy asphalt. “He’s going to get blood all over your trunk,” she muttered to Madison, who shrugged it off.  _ We’ll have to get rid of these clothes, too. _ Misty bit her lower lip as Madison helped her lift the body upward, and they hurled him into the back of the trunk. 

“You drive,” Madison said. “Take us to the swamp.” 

“I’m drunk.”

“So am I. I think we’re past the point of trying not to commit crimes tonight.” Madison already had the door to the passenger side ajar, leaving Misty no choice but to fight with her or to drive, and Misty had had a stomach full of fighting tonight. She got into the driver’s seat and put on her seatbelt, speeding out of the alley and heading for the interstate. 

Madison cracked the windows and lit a cigarette. The radio was silent. Only the ember of her cigarette smoldered in the night. The wind rushed past the car and chilled Misty’s face and hands, sobering her. A rush of twisted sadness ripped through her insides. What would’ve happened if Madison hadn’t seen her, hadn’t come out? Would she have been able to defend herself? Would the flames have frightened him enough? Or would he have persevered and raped her anyway? She shuddered at the thought. “I’m sorry,” she croaked, barely audible over the sound of the wind. “I should have kept a better watch on my drink.” 

Flicking the embers out the window, Madison said, “It’s not your fault. I shouldn’t have left you.” She offered Misty a drag on the cigarette. 

This time, Misty accepted. She immediately began to cough. “Jesus!” Her lungs felt like they were collapsing. She took a big gasp for air, wheezing audibly. “How—do you—do that?” sh asked between coughs. It smoldered inside of her. 

Madison snorted. “Lots of practice.” She offered Misty another drag, but Misty garbled an unintelligible protest, something like  _ No way in hell, _ and Madison dropped the cigarette butt out the window, leaving it for some poor bird to eat and die. She leaned back in the seat, gazing up at the starry sky through the sunroof of the car. 

The rest of the ride passed in silence. Misty pulled off into an old gravel parking lot with clover and weeds breaking through the stone. A sign dubbed it a nature hike, but the state government had cut funding for it years ago, so now it was bank-owned property where no trespassers were allowed to stray. None except Misty, of course, who lived like a phantom in her shack. She backed the car all the way up into the tree line and killed all of the lights on the vehicle. She popped the trunk. “C’mon. I know where we’re going.” 

Swinging out of the car, Madison took the man by his wrists, and Misty took him by his ankles. They carried him far into hedges, and once they were definitely out of sight, Madison dropped his head and went to help Misty drag him by his ankles. She took one and Misty took the other, and like a bloody wheelbarrow, they hauled him through the woods. “How much farther?” Madison asked after a few minutes of the black darkness and the whirring crickets and cicadas disturbed her. Unlike Misty, she did not feel at home here; chills reverberated down her spine with all of the spirits that echoed here. 

“Another half mile or so.” Madison stumbled over a thick branch in her path. “You can use your light,” Misty said. “Nobody out here is going to see it, anyway.” Madison did just that, reaching into her purse and flicking on the flashlight on her cell phone. It illuminated the path just enough for them to proceed. The moonlight overhead betrayed nothing with the long shadows of the trees. 

Outside the shack, Misty stopped. Her garden had overgrown, and the building was starting to cave in on itself. “Here. Out back.” They hauled the cold corpse, which was beginning to stiffen, into the back garden. Misty held out her hand, and two rusty shovels came to her. She gave one to Madison, and in unison, they plunged the blades into the earth and began to upheave it. Their hands blistered and cracked with the strain, but neither of them faltered; Misty admired Madison’s tenacity. “I never would’ve thought you’d be the type to help me hide a body.” 

“I wouldn’t be hiding him, but I prefer not spending time in prison.” The hole grew wider and deeper, and they kept flinging the worms and the roots. Dirt showered around them and stuck to where the blood was drying on their skins. Once it was ready, Madison flung the knife into the grave. They picked him up and rolled him into the earth, his limbs all strewn about, facedown. “Facedown is better for him,” Madison decided. “The worms will start with his eyes.” 

Misty nodded in agreement. She shimmied out of her dress. “We have to bury our clothes.” Madison ogled at her in the dim light. “Well?” 

Madison, too, began to derobe. “Do you have other clothes?” 

“Yeah, I’ve got a bunch of stuff I never recovered from out here.” Dropping everything with bloodstains into the hole, Misty began to kick and move dirt over it with her shovel. The chill sent shivers down her spine, where she wore only her underwear, and across from her, Madison’s slip shivered in the moonlight. They packed the earth solid over the hole. “But we gotta wash up.” 

“I suppose your idea of  _ washing up _ is taking a bath in a pond.”

“Would you rather walk in and let everyone see you with blood all over your face? You look like Lizzie Borden.” Overhead, an owl hooted, and bats swooped back and forth. Misty stepped on the grave and took Madison’s sticky hand, where dirt and drying blood had formed a gross mixture. “Come on.” She tugged Madison down to the pond and waded into it, and after a muttering of resistance, Madison followed her into the chilly depths. 

Misty sank below the surface of the water and scrubbed her face. She had felt the blood spatter there. It had stung like a slap when it first touched her, and it burned for a long time afterward, burned enough that she wondered,  _ Is this what it felt like when they threw acid at Cordelia? _ and while she knew it didn’t logically make sense, she couldn’t help but liken the experiences. The moonlight stained the dark water silver, and she floated, listening to the water peacefully stir around her with the fish. Only when her chest ached did she reemerge. 

Madison scrubbed at her soiled hands. “I can’t get some of this off.” Misty went to her aid, cupping water in her hands and splashing it onto her face. She rubbed at the spots on Madison’s skin, eager to get the grime off of her. “We need soap.”

“Use the hand sanitizer in your purse. The alcohol will help some of it come—oh, god, we left without paying for our drinks.”

Madison arched an eyebrow at her. “You just realized that?” 

“Busy night, okay?” Misty defended herself. “Anyway—I think the alcohol will help us scrub it off, maybe.” She used her fingernails to pick underneath Madison’s, digging out some of the red-stained grub that she could see in the dim light.  _ This would be a lot easier if we had gone home to get cleaned up.  _ But she wanted to get the feeling of murderer off of her skin. She wanted to go home to Cordelia as someone relatively clean. 

Of course, she would tell Cordelia the truth. She couldn’t imagine lying to her. But she didn’t want to be covered in blood when she did it. Somehow, she felt the truth would be easier for Cordelia to swallow if Misty looked more or less like herself instead of a drunk murderer. 

Sodden, dripping, and cold, the two waded back out of the pond and onto the muddy shore. Misty wandered into her shack and fumbled through her things, looking for anything that would fit. She gave Madison an old dress and donned a well-worn flannel and some jeans for herself. They sat on a rotting log in a sliver of moonlight. 

Madison lit another cigarette. She offered it to Misty. Misty shook her head, reaching into her own purse and pulling out a joint. “Can I have a light?” Madison’s eyes widened with disbelief. “Don’t look at me like that,” Misty mumbled as Madison gave her the cigarette lighter. She struck it and lit the end of her joint. She inhaled deeply and held it, feeling it crackle and burn inside of her. On the way out, she blew a cloud. She coughed a few times. Her eyes stung. “You really thought I lived on my own in the woods listening to hippie music and I wasn’t a pothead?” 

Reconsidering, Madison shrugged. “I guess it checks out.” She took a long drag on her cigarette. “Does Cordelia know?” 

“What Cordelia doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”  _ I probably should check my hypocrisy _ . Misty would consider all of that later. As she felt her frazzled nerves finally begin to calm, she tilted her head back to look at the moon. “What did you mean,” she asked, “when you said you knew Cordelia wouldn’t care from experience?” 

A cloud of smoke curled between her and the starry sky. Madison exhaled long and slow. She held her cigarette between her fingers, but she didn’t lift it back up to her lips. The end smoldered, flinging ghosts of embers upon the grass and soil beneath their feet. “When Zoe first came here,” she spoke, voice very slow, “I decided I would take her to a frat party to introduce her to the city.” She played with the cigarette, rolling it between her knuckles. “She got caught up with a pretty boy—Kyle, but he was different before you met him, before he died. I got bored. Wandered off. Kind of like I did tonight, I guess.” She paused to take a drag on her cigarette, and she continued speaking, the smoke emerging from her lungs on her words. “I met a football player. He got me a drink. And… I don’t remember anything vividly after that.” The embers of her cigarette were about to die. She snuffed it out in the dirt. “There were a lot of bodies. A lot of sweat. A lot of blood. A lot of pain.” Her voice didn’t shake, so Misty sucked in her own tears. “When Zoe and Kyle found me, there were three of them on top of me.” Madison held out her hand, and Misty passed her the burning joint. “They ran, all the boys. Kyle chased them onto this travel bus. And when I came to, I flipped it.”

Misty pursed her lips. “That was how Kyle died.” 

“Yeah.” Madison cleared her throat. “I felt like I owed it to Zoe, since she liked him, so we stuck him back together. Not him, of course, just his head on the parts that we liked the best. There wasn’t a whole body to be found in the wreckage.”  _ Jesus fucking Christ, Madison, _ Misty wanted to say—she said it like it was so everyday, so common, to go to the morgue and treat it like Build-a-Boyfriend Workshop. “Anyway, things came back around to us eventually…” She passed the joint back to Misty, who took another hit from it. Her stomach mellowed out, no longer in knots from the alcohol and the roofie. “The cops showed up. Dragged me and Zoe and Fiona and Cordelia into this room and locked us in and started asking us questions. They had footage of Zoe killing one of the survivors in the hospital.” 

_ Everyone in this coven is more dangerous and violent than I thought they were.  _ Misty raised her eyebrows, somewhat impressed and a little frightened, as Madison continued to talk. “They had made connections with how Zoe’s first boyfriend died and the one in the hospital. She panicked. Stupid bitch.” Her hands drummed absently on her knees. “She told them everything. And I mean  _ everything. _ Fifteen seconds flat, these guys knew we were witches, knew she had killed Charles, telling them about what happened to me, screaming I flipped the bus and gave those guys exactly what they deserved. There was no way to lie back out of it.” 

“What did Cordelia do?” Misty asked desperately.  _ Surely _ Cordelia would have done something. Misty knew how deeply Cordelia felt about protecting her students. She would have internalized this as the worst of her failures. 

Madison laughed. It was a wry, broken, angry thing. “Cordelia? She didn’t do a goddamn thing.” Misty’s brow furrowed with confusion, her lips pursing, waiting for elaboration. “ _ Fiona _ took control of the cops. Made them hand over all the information they had on us. Wiped their memories, sent them on their ways. And then she followed us to our bedroom and yelled at us. Threatened us for being too sensitive, for being afraid. She looked at us, and she said, ‘In this whole, wide, wicked world, the only thing you have to be afraid of is me.’ And she stormed out of the room.” 

Misty waited. There was silence. “So  _ then _ what did Cordelia do?”

“Nothing!” Madison threw her hands up in the air. “Don’t you get it? She. Didn’t. Care. She went about living her merry life and pretended she hadn’t heard a thing Zoe said. If anything, she worked a little bit harder at avoiding me. She didn’t give a flying fuck then, and I sure as shit don’t think she gives one now.” She rolled her eyes, leaning her head back to look up at the sky. “Until then, I had thought maybe she was different from every other grownass adult I had ever had in my life.” Her voice grew quiet and sombre, and Misty reached for her and smoothed a hand up her back. “I thought maybe  _ she  _ would care… I was still naive enough to give her the benefit of the doubt. But I was just a Hollywood pawn to her, like everyone else.” 

Lowering her face, Madison stared at the dirt. Her breath shook, labored.  _ She’s crying.  _ Misty realized she had never seen Madison cry before. She put her arms around her waist and pulled her into a hug, and Madison didn’t resist, but rather fell against Misty’s chest and wept, an unloved child finally knowing a warm embrace. Misty lowered her face and buried it into her hair, still wet with swamp water. “You’re not a Hollywood pawn to me…” Misty thought for a moment, and then she added, “Actually, I don’t think I ever watched any of your movies.” 

“Please, don’t, they all suck!” Madison sobbed. Her body quaked with all of the emotion she hadn’t been able to shed over the years of her life she had been neglected and abused in favor of propagating her fame. She clung to Misty with her hands in tight fists, and Misty held her like that, shedding her own tears of disbelief and shock into Madison’s hair. The bullfrogs croaked their song of the nighttime. When the sobs had subsided, Madison still didn’t move, and Misty didn’t push her away. She didn’t have anywhere better to be. “You are so lucky,” Madison whispered, “that somebody loves you as much as Cordelia does.”   
“I’ve never loved somebody this much before,” Misty admitted. 

It was quiet except for the sounds of the woods. The music of nature reached out and touched her soul. “You and Cordelia are going to be fine.” Misty looked down at her. “Trust me.” 

Misty smiled. “I guess we should go back, then… if I don’t want to be in the doghouse for the next week.” She stood and offered her hand to Madison, who pulled herself up. “Hey…” Madison glanced at her. “Those guys, who did that to you… Did you get all of them?” 

Madison frowned. “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “Only the main one I saw run onto the bus… He was who I wanted the most.” 

Misty nodded thoughtfully and led the way out of the woods. 

When they pulled up at the school, most of the lights in the house were turned on. Madison stared up at the house from the driveway. “Do you think we could sneak in through the backdoor to evade notice?” she asked. After all, it was four in the morning, and they had spent the last eight hours ignoring Madison’s cell phone, which was now dead. 

“Pssh. Like you have anything to worry about.” Misty swung out of the car, closing the door behind her, and Madison followed. “Maddie?” Misty asked under the streetlights. Madison grunted in response. “Thanks for taking me out tonight… And for saving me from that guy. And helping me hide the body.” Madison snorted, rolling her eyes. “I’m real lucky to have a friend like you.” 

“Let’s do it again sometime. Without the body and the swamp baths.” Madison smelled the front of her dress and made a face, and then she offered her hand to Misty and gestured to the front porch. They walked up the sidewalk side by side, and Madison held the door open for Misty. 

At the sound of the door closing and locking behind them, Cordelia thundered down the stairs like a herd of horses. She paused at the landing to get a look at them, and then she hurried toward them, landing between the two of them with a desperate hug. Misty eagerly reciprocated it. Madison stiffened like a board and waited to be released. “It is  _ four o’clock in the morning! _ ” Cordelia held them at arm’s length, looking at the both of them. She didn’t raise her voice, but her eyes were bloodshot from crying. Guilt pierced Misty’s chest. “Where on earth have the two of you been? I was so worried about you! And what the hell are you wearing?” She started by looking at Madison’s ugly, stained chiffon dress, but she looked even more appalled at Misty in vintage, faded flannel and jeans. “Where are your clothes?” 

Madison cleared her throat. “Well, this seems like a story that can be told in the marital bed, so I’ll just excuse myself—”

“Don’t you dare!”

“Let her go,” Misty told Cordelia calmly. “It was my fault. I’ll tell you everything.”  _ Run! While you have the chance! _ Madison exchanged a glance with Misty, smiled, and trotted on up the stairs out of sight. Cordelia watched her go, and then she fixed her eyes on Misty once again. “I’m so sorry—” Misty started. 

“No,  _ I’m _ sorry, I should’ve been more understanding—”

“I overreacted completely, I was just angry—”

“I never should’ve told you those things about your family—”

“I was so wrong to tell you you’d be a bad mom—” 

They both fell silent as their apologies stumbled over one another. Misty looked at her hands. Dirt was still encrusted under her fingernails. Cordelia hugged her again, kissing her cheek, and Misty sank into her arms with a feeling of relief washing over her. “You know,” Cordelia whispered, “I thought it was Madison… But you smell like pot.”

Misty laughed. Cordelia didn’t. “Oh, I guess that’s only funny because I’m high. C’mon, I’ll tell you everything in a bath.” She smelled like swamp stink, and she didn’t want to tarnish the bed with it. The bed always smelled like Cordelia’s vanilla lotion. She loved it. 

“I don’t want a bath,” Cordelia argued. “I want some answers.” 

Misty closed their bedroom door behind them and locked it. “Delia, please,” she begged. “I smell like swamp water. I want to be clean and smell like your good fruity soap.” Cordelia tucked a lock of her damp hair behind her ear and leaned forward to kiss her, an acquiescence. Her warm, soft lips pressed against Misty’s. Misty melted into her embrace. “I missed you.” 

“I missed you, too.” With her arm around Misty, Cordelia led them into the bathroom, turning on the hot water and plugging up the tub, filling it with scented bubbles. Misty unbuttoned the old flannel and the jeans. “Did you still have these clothes at your cabin?” Misty nodded. “Why did you have to go there?” 

“To hide a body.” Misty said it with her face in a thin, straight line as she stepped into the bathtub and sank beneath the growing bubbles. Cordelia looked back at her. Misty held her gaze. “Are you coming in?” 

Cordelia’s naked body always attracted Misty; she craved nothing more than Cordelia’s skin on her own. And as Cordelia dropped her pajamas and slipped into the tub water beside Misty, she relished in the touch of her wife. It was hard to believe that a few hours ago, she had actually drunkenly considered  _ leaving _ her. She had never been happy before Cordelia. She couldn’t imagine being happy without her. If there were multiple universes, she knew that she found Cordelia in every single one. “Are you serious?” Cordelia asked her. Misty nodded. “What happened?” 

So then, Misty began to talk. She spoke softly so her voice wouldn’t travel through the walls to the other girls and frighten them like their boisterous argument had earlier. Toying with Cordelia’s hand, she tapped her fingers along on her thigh, bending them and admiring the way the joints moved. “I didn’t even see her come out of the building, I was too busy trying to figure out how to fight him off. I burned him, and he fell back, and Madison just dropped down on top of him. Like a hawk on a baby rabbit. Whoosh.” Misty followed the veins in Cordelia’s hand. “She had this knife she had stolen from the bar. Stabbed him over and over. I dunno how many times. She went full Lizzie Borden on him. Forty whacks. Flipped him over and forty more.”

“He deserved it,” Cordelia said sternly. 

_ Oh, now you think somebody deserved it? _ Misty didn’t dare bring up their argument again. She gave a tiny, sad smile. “Maddie said so, too. I wanted to bring him back and wipe his memory… She wouldn’t let me do it. She was real tore up over it.” Cordelia remained silent. Misty’s eyes flitted over her face, hoping to gain some kind of confession, some word of acknowledgement—anything to hear Cordelia’s side of what Madison had told her. Cordelia stared down at her toes. “Do you know anything about that?” Misty dared to ask, praying it wasn’t the start of another argument. 

A long, pent-up breath whooshed from Cordelia’s lungs. “Someone hurt Madison very badly, before you came here. And I… I was not as available as I should have been to her, or to any of them. And she fell through the cracks. And by the time I realized it, it was—it was too late for me to do anything to make it better, because I ignored her when she needed me the most.” She rested her cheekbone on Misty’s shoulder. “I promised myself I would not let that happen again. I was so—so preoccupied with myself and what I wanted… I forgot my first job was to be a teacher.” Her eyes flicked up to Misty. “Did she tell you everything?” she asked. 

“It’s not my place to say what she did and didn’t tell me, lilypad,” Misty said, smoothing the hair back out of Cordelia’s eyes, “but… I don’t think it’d hurt for you to apologize now. To make her feel valued now. She thinks nobody cares about her.”  _ And frankly, I don’t blame her. _ The world had constantly chewed Madison up and spit her out at people who wanted nothing more than her fame or her photograph or a piece of her ass. She had never had a real friend. “You could, you know, start it out casual. Thank her for helping me out tonight. Then kinda segue into what you actually wanna say. And give her a hug when you’re done, I don’t think she gets enough of those. She kinda melted when I hugged her earlier.” 

“I just hugged her a few minutes ago. It was like hugging a telephone pole.” 

“Well, that was spontaneous. You’re going to build up to it.” 

Cordelia chuckled in spite of herself. “I love you, Misty.” She stole a kiss from Misty’s lips. “You are the most patient, kind, loving woman I have ever met. And I am so lucky to have you for myself. And Madison is lucky to have you as a friend.” She collected Misty’s blonde locks in her hair. The swamp water had stained them slightly green. “What happened, then? Where did you put him?” 

Leaning her head back for Cordelia to wash her hair, Misty said, “We slung him into the trunk and hauled him off in the woods.” She frowned. “Come to think of it, we might be getting a traffic ticket in the mail. I mean, I’m not making any promises, but I was drunk  _ and _ I had just been roofied, plus I was acutely aware of the dead guy in the back, so my driving was probably not my best work.” 

Raising an eyebrow, Cordelia teased, “So you’re zero for two on responsibility today?” She lathered up Misty’s blonde hair and let it soak. 

“Oh, shut up.” Misty rolled her eyes. “We dragged him out in the woods where nobody would find him, dug a hole six feet deep, threw him in it with our dirty clothes, scrubbed up in the pond, and then we shared a joint and talked until we calmed down some.” 

Cordelia’s face shifted, like there was a question she wanted to ask but was afraid of. Misty nudged her plaintively, asking her for her thoughts as she petted Cordelia’s wet hair. “So…” Cordelia puckered her lower lip. Misty waited patiently. “Madison saw you naked?” 

Biting the inside of her cheek hard, Misty resisted the urge to roll her eyes again. Cordelia wouldn’t have said it if she wasn’t insecure. “Well, yeah. But it was pretty dark, and we were both covered in blood. I don’t think she saw anything she liked.” She drew herself up tall beside Cordelia, winking around the soapsuds starting to trickle into her eyes. “Besides, she’d have to fight me to get me off of you.” Dark eyes darted away from her. Cordelia had been burned before, and Misty knew better than to take her insecurity as mistrust. “I’m serious,” Misty added, the levity in her voice rolling away. “She made me feel better about our argument. She told me you didn’t hate me… She told me about the cream cheese.”

Cordelia frowned. “What about the cream cheese?” 

“Everybody hates the strawberry. You only buy it because I like it.” 

“ _ Oh. _ Well, as fast as you eat the bagels, it’s not like anyone else gets the chance to taste it, anyway.” Misty chuckled. Cordelia took a cup of water and rinsed the shampoo suds from her hair. She used her hand to guard Misty’s forehead and eyes. “I’m sorry,” Cordelia said, “that I’m so… so…”

“Insecure?” Misty provided.

At the word, Cordelia grimaced. “Yes. It’s not that I don’t trust you, but that I… I don’t trust myself.” She didn’t make full eye contact with Misty, who reached to give her a hug once all of the soap had left her locks. “And I’m sorry we argued… I should have been more patient with you. You had every right to be angry. I don’t know how I would have reacted if I had found them doing that.” 

The cat meandered from the bedroom into the bathroom, peering up at them. He chirruped a happy chirp as he passed by them. Misty smiled at the sight of him. “I have enough confidence for both of us,” she reassured Cordelia. She knew she would never do anything to hurt Cordelia like Hank had done. One day, she hoped Cordelia would know it, too. “And I’m sorry. I should’ve been more willing to listen to you.”

Cordelia was silent in her musings. Then, she asked, “Did you mean it when you said I make you feel like a placeholder? Or that I don’t think you can do anything right?” 

Misty had almost forgotten those infuriated words she had hurled at Cordelia in her fit of rage. She tilted her head. Had she meant those things? Well, they had come from somewhere, hadn’t they? “I guess I’m—I’m always aware that the life I have with you was not your first choice for happiness. I mean, we’re never going to move out to the heights and live in a three story mansion with a white picket fence and two and a half kids and a dog, and I know that was what you wanted.” Maybe Cordelia wasn’t the only one who was insecure. It wasn’t their relationship that Misty doubted, but her own ability to matter to anyone. “I feel like I can’t give you what makes you happy.” 

Face turning in perplexion, Cordelia’s honey-hued eyes looked up at Misty. “Misty, you  _ are _ what makes me happy.” She caressed the back of Misty’s hand. “I was never going to have the white picket fence dream. And I am so much happier now with you than I ever was before.” She paused. “And also I’m a little disturbed that your fantasy includes  _ half _ of a child.”

Chuckling, Misty shook her head. “That’s just a thing people say—”

“I know, I’m teasing you.” Cordelia wrapped their hands up together and tangled their fingers under the water. “If you’re ever feeling that way, will you let me know? So I can reassure you? I don’t want you to be alone when you’re thinking of yourself like that.” 

“I will,” Misty promised. She didn’t know how good she would make on that promise. Cordelia reached for a loofa. “Oh, I get the good stuff, huh?” Cordelia raised her eyebrows as she poured her favorite soap into the loofa. As Cordelia touched it to her back, Misty sighed at the pleasant sensation, becoming reflective once again. “I reckon I’ve always felt that… I ain’t  _ useful _ to somebody, they don’t have a good reason to care about me. If I can’t serve a purpose, I shouldn’t be around…” She drifted off. She could remember exact instances she had learned that: her father with his gun leveled at a sheep bellowing,  _ You’re either gonna help or you’re gonna get the hell out of my way; _ her mother lashing her with a dish towel in the kitchen after she burned a pot of vegetable soup yelling,  _ If you can’t be useful then stop taking up my damn space _ ; her father snapping his belt in his hands,  _ You’ll either learn to be good or you’ll learn to be quiet. _ “Maybe you were right about my family after all,” she mused, much quieter than before. Maybe she had been abused. She had never thought about it that way before—it was always just life to her. She knew nothing else. But she had seen the way Cordelia handled these girls, and it was always so different from the way any adult had acknowledged her as a child. “I don’t think they were very good people, to treat me the way they did sometimes.” There was absolutely nothing she’d been beaten for as a child that couldn’t have been solved with a stern and logical conversation. All these years, she had excused what had happened to her based on the explanation that she had been naughty, it was her fault for not being a better child, for not serving her purpose more efficiently…  _ But I don’t think children are supposed to have a purpose.  _

Cordelia gave her a small, sad smile. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said any of that to you. That’s for you to realize on your own terms, not for me to use against you in an argument.” 

“I think I needed to hear it,” Misty admitted. She never would’ve accepted the truth from anyone other than Cordelia. “And I was wrong to use that as an excuse to hurt those girls. Even if I still think they really deserved it.”

“I’ll talk to them tomorrow,” Cordelia promised as she rinsed the sweet-smelling soap from Misty’s body, “and if anything like that happens again, they’ll be expelled. There isn’t an excuse for behaving like that, ever… Hurting an animal  _ or _ crossing my wife.”

Being called that,  _ my wife _ , still made Misty smile. “Well, I won’t be hitting them again. Unless it’s to save their lives or something. No more violence in this house.”

“So you’re going to stop killing men in bars?” 

“That was Maddie. I was an innocent bystander. But if one comes at me again, I’m gonna stop them.” 

“That’s my girl.” 

They rinsed their bodies and stepped out of the tub, Misty smelling fresher than ever. She wrapped herself in a towel and patted herself dry hastily, wringing out her sodden hair. Looking at herself in the mirror, she noted how tired, how haggard, she looked in her reflection.  _ And I’ve got a lot left to do tonight.  _ She glanced back at Cordelia. “What do you say we make up now?” she asked. 

“But we already made up.”

“No, I mean  _ make up _ .” Misty waggled her eyebrows. Cordelia laughed, and Misty drew her into a tight kiss. They collapsed into the bed and made love in the dark until the sun began to crawl up over the horizon. 

…

Late the next morning, Madison stared at her phone over a bowl of cornflakes, scrolling through Instagram. She dropped absent hearts on everything Zoe had posted yesterday from her trip to the museum. Her cornflakes were quickly growing soggy. The rest of the coven had mulled about—Kyle and Zoe were out gallivanting somewhere, Queenie teaching a class, and Nan reading a book outside on the porch. She could only assume Misty and Cordelia were sleeping in after a night of making up. The television ran in the background, scrolling across headlines, which she ignored. 

Urgent footsteps drummed down the stairs. “Misty?” Cordelia called. Madison kept eating her cornflakes, tuning her out. “Misty?” At the base of the stairs, she surveyed the room. “Have you seen her?” she asked Madison. 

Madison lifted her eyes from her phone. The screen faded to black. “Huh?” she asked, her brian not entirely awake yet. “Misty? Haven’t seen her.” 

“Did she come down for breakfast?” 

“Not since I’ve been up.” Madison put her phone down on the coffee table and leaned back with her bowl of cereal in her lap, hoping to ignore Cordelia’s antics, but Cordelia kept pacing anxiously. “Are you sure she’s not upstairs somewhere? She fucks around in Spalding’s stuff sometimes. She’s been talking about making a sunroof up in the attic.” 

Cordelia shook her head. “No, I looked up there. She’s not in any of the bathrooms, and her phone and purse and shoes are all gone. She left!” 

The hair stood up on Madison’s arms. She smoothed it back down, trying to brush away her concern. Misty wasn’t going to go anywhere without Cordelia. Putting her feet on the floor, she sat up. “Well, did you make up after your argument last night?” 

“I—I thought we did, but maybe I was wrong, maybe she was still upset with me… I told her I was sorry, I thought we were past it.” 

“She wasn’t upset with you. She was afraid you were upset with her.”  _ Misty didn’t run off because of a fight they made up over.  _ Madison scanned the room, looking for any hint—a note, a track, anything Misty would’ve left behind to indicate where she had gone. 

Cordelia peered out the window. “Dammit, my car’s gone. She took my car.” 

“Then she’s definitely coming back. She wouldn’t just take off with your car and not plan to come back. She’s probably just at the grocery store or…” A scrolling headline caught her eye, and she turned to face the television as the picture shifted on a breaking news report. “…something.” 

A blonde woman greeted the camera. “There have been reports of rogue alligator attacks on university campuses all across the city this morning.” At the sound of the report, Cordelia scampered into the living room, and Madison turned up the volume. “More than a dozen fraternity houses from the University of New Orleans, Xavier, Loyola, and Tulane have all reported sudden swarms of alligators busting in their doors and attacking, mainly targeting a particularly sensitive area of their bodies.”

The camera cut to an interview with a young man weeping into the camera. “They just grabbed Dan by the crotch of his pants and snapped! They just snapped it right off! They just snapped it off!” 

“Interestingly,” the reporter continued, “one of the frat houses impacted is Alpha Delta Phi, the house which suffered a great loss of life during a mysterious bus crash a few years ago and only recently recovered. Students from every house recollect the same thing—the gators were after their penises.” 

Madison and Cordelia both blinked blankly at the screen. “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Madison whispered as she flicked off the television. She thought she and Misty had sorted through everything last night, but clearly, Misty had a vengeful streak.  _ Her revenge is even more creative than mine. _ Holding out her hand, she summoned her purse. “Alright then.”

“Wait! Where are you going?” 

Madison strode across the floor and stepped into her shoes from the night before, still spattered in blood. “I’m going to find your wife. Are you gonna come with me or do you wanna wait here?” 

Cordelia paused. “I’m wearing my pajamas.” Madison shrugged and headed to the door. “Wait, wait, I’m coming!” She stumbled into some house slippers and ran after her out the front door. She locked the door behind herself and jogged to Madison’s car, looking ridiculous in her pink gown and brown slippers and her hair all tangled in a mess. “How do you know where she is? She could be anywhere.” 

Madison cranked the car. “To recruit a hoard of alligators, she had to go to the swamp. She’s either going to be there, or she’s finishing up her reign of terror and will go there soon.” Cordelia strapped herself in as Madison backed down the driveway. 

Silence followed. Cordelia sucked her lower lip. Then, she ventured to ask, “Did you give her this idea?” 

Eye twitching in fury, Madison snipped, “Yes, I told her to send her gaggle of gators down to all of the frat houses in the city and randomly bite off people’s penises. Do you really think I could ever be that creative? This has Misty written all over it.” She sped up as she boarded the highway to leave the city, flying ten miles over the speed limit, then fifteen, and each one made Cordelia tense a little more in her seat. “You may not believe this, but I’m actually  _ not _ responsible for the bulk of the bad things that happen in the house. Lots of things just happen and somehow wind up getting blamed on me.” 

Cordelia’s mouth hung open as she turned to face Madison, her grip on the handle of the car door white-knuckled and firm. Madison glared at the road ahead, both unable and unwilling to make eye contact. “I—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to blame you. I’m just concerned about her.” It was the first time Madison had ever heard Cordelia apologize to her for anything. Her brain paused and ticked,  _ Did she mean it? _ but she didn’t dare ask it aloud. “I… I am grateful for you taking care of her yesterday. Thank you.” 

“Not a problem.” Madison worked to keep from grating her voice. She couldn’t argue with Cordelia right now when they were stuck in a car together. It was a volatile recipe for disaster. “Hiding corpses is a good pair bonding activity, so they say.” 

Face whitening a little, Cordelia shifted in her seat, and Madison wondered if she had ticked a nerve somehow. “I’m sorry,” she said again, and this was the second time Cordelia had apologized to Madison in a stretch of about ten minutes when she had never managed such a thing before. “I failed you when it was my job to protect you. And I’ve felt guilty ever since, that I wasn’t there for you when you needed me the most. I promised myself that I wouldn’t let that happen to anyone else in the coven again, but I’ve realized I still owed you an apology.” 

“How much of that did Misty tell you to say?” 

Face flaming, Cordelia looked away, and Madison arched an eyebrow, wondering if Cordelia had actually thought she was stupid enough to buy into all of that. “I told her I felt guilty, and she told me it wasn’t too late to apologize. I was under the impression you hated me and wanted nothing to do with me, but she told me I had a chance… I decided to take it. Because I owed it to you. Especially when you saved her where I failed to save you.” 

“I thought  _ you _ hated  _ me, _ ” Madison countered. She felt she had much more reason to believe that than Cordelia the opposite. 

“I don’t.” Cordelia said the words like a vow, a promise she should have made years ago. “I love you. And I am so very, deeply sorry that I let all this time pass without trying to show you or help you. I was wrong. I don’t expect you to forgive me right now, or ever, but I just want you to know that I’m here, should you ever decide you need me.” Madison’s throat stung, closing up with anger and grief. It was too late. Cordelia had waited too damn long to approach her with this. She kept her sharp eyes on the road. Cordelia pressed gently, “Do you want to talk about what happened last night?” 

Cordelia was being too nice for Madison to keep hating her. She bit down on the back of her tongue to keep from spitting something inappropriate or pouring out her guts or somehow managing to do both. “Nothing happened.” Cordelia’s brow quirked. “He was your average date rapist. But he picked the wrong witch to roofie.” 

“When did you see something was wrong?” 

“I saw him take Misty off the barstool and drag her across the floor. That was when I went for the knife and took off after him.” 

“That was very brave.” 

“I had a steak knife, magical powers, and a lot of anger inside of me. He didn’t stand a damn chance.” Madison hesitated. “She would have been fine if I wasn’t there. She was already throwing fire at him when I jumped on him. She knew how to defend herself.”  _ I didn’t. _ She didn’t need to say those words; they were implied. She was stupid and weak. Misty was neither of those things. 

Cordelia’s concerned look grew only deeper. “You don’t know what could’ve happened to her… I’m glad you were there.” She peered at Madison’s side profile. “If you ever want to talk—” she started, but Madison cut her off. 

“No offense, Cordy, but right now, this is the last thing I want to talk about.” She didn’t need to keep reliving it over and over again, not now; it was too dangerous and she was too vulnerable. Perhaps if Cordelia proved herself, if she proved she meant it and she wasn’t just being contrite because of what had happened to Misty, maybe then Madison could bring herself to trust her again. But none of that was going to happen right now. Right now, she wanted to find Misty and work on an alibi, just in case anybody showed up at the school wanting to know if they could hex alligators to snap off penises. 

Cordelia nodded. “Of course.” She didn’t press Madison again. Her eyes stuck to the window and watched the foliage pass by. “I really appreciate that you took her out last night. She needs a friend. And—well, all things considered, I think she had a good time. She was really happy.”

“It was the pot,” Madison said. 

“Well, yeah, I figured. But it was also you.”  _ Well, I didn’t have a bad time, myself. _ Madison wouldn’t say that, because the night had passed in such a series of horrors that she had a hard time saying anything that happened to them was  _ fun _ —but she trusted Misty. Misty gave nice hugs, and she didn’t talk too much or make things about herself, and she listened in such a way that Madison trusted she was actually listening but also that she wouldn’t repeat anything sensitive. “How do you know where you’re going?” 

“Misty brought me here last night.” Madison’s car cruised down the mostly deserted highway, looking for the place they had turned off last night, the sign marking the hiking trail and the gravel with grass growing in around it as the earth reclaimed what once had been her own. 

The answer didn’t satisfy Cordelia. “But it was dark last night, and you were drunk. How do you remember the way to find it?” 

Madison didn’t have an answer to this question. She shrugged. “I dunno. I always remember where I go.” She kept her hands tight on the steering wheel, speeding ten miles over the speed limit, though Cordelia had acclimated to the pace and relaxed—or perhaps was resigned to her own fate as one to end in the wrecked inferno of Madison’s car. “It was pretty memorable. It bends off the road into an overgrown gravel lot and a wooden sign that calls it a nature hike. But it’s closed now. Got the no trespassing signs all over.” She paused, realizing she probably didn’t need to say any of that to Cordelia. “But you’ve been there.” Cordelia was silent. “Right?” 

The hesitance in her answer was all Madison needed to hear. “We got busy,” she finally admitted. “We kept saying we were going to do it, but time got away from us. Classes to teach. Things to do. You know. We’re going to do it eventually…” She drifted off. “Hell, no wonder Misty feels like she’s a placeholder in my life.” 

“Mhm,” Madison hummed. It was best for Cordelia to draw her own conclusions. 

“Did she tell you that?” 

Madison shook her head. “She won’t talk about you to anyone. And she’ll absolutely destroy anybody who wants to bad mouth you, even if she’s upset with you. You don’t have anything to worry about. She’s the human form of a golden retriever… with jaws like an alligator.” 

“Do you think she feels like she’s second priority?” 

“If she told you that, I’d be willing to bet she was telling you the truth.” Madison was growing impatient with this nonsense. It wasn’t her relationship to fix. But Misty was her friend now, whatever the hell that meant, and that included hauling her wife out of the house in her pajamas to go hunt her down after she unleashed a village of angry alligators upon the city’s fraternities. “Here.” Pulling off of the road, Madison followed the tire tracks from last night all the way back into the parking lot where the gravel met the foliage which has become to expand along the line. “It’s this way.” On the other side of the parking lot, in the hedges, was Cordelia’s car. 

She swung out of the car and locked it behind her. Cordelia stumbled after her. The sunlight glittered off her sheer pink nightgown, and the slippers quickly became soggy as she marched through the undergrowth after Madison. Madison tried to slow down for her to keep up in her gross, mucky slippers. Her own shoes were worse for wear, but at least they were actual shoes. In the daylight without a heavy body lagging around behind them, the trail to Misty’s shack was much clearer—more of a cat path, seldom walked but still visible. 

At the mouth of the clearing that revealed Misty’s shack, they halted. There, on a rotting log outside the shack, Misty sat, a lit joint in her hand and her head tilted back to admire the blue sky. She wore her regular chiffon dress and her boots, neither of which had even a spot of blood. She blew a ring of smoke from between her lips, oblivious to their presence. Madison cleared her throat. The sound stirred Misty from her reverie, and she rose and turned on her heel to see them. “Well, won’t you look at that. It’s my best friend, and she brought my beautiful wife, who’s still in her pajamas.” She approached Cordelia, holding out the joint to Madison, who accepted it and took a deep hit. She kissed Cordelia. “Did you sleep well?”

“I did.” Cordelia stroked her hair. “I’m glad you’re safe. We were worried about you. And then we saw the news.” 

“Aw, man, I made the news? Exciting.” Madison sat down on the end of the rotting log. Misty took Cordelia by the hand and led her there as well, sinking down between the two of them herself. “So, did I hit the right place? I tried all the big ones at every university, I figured one of them had to be it.”

“You hit the right one.” With her words, Madison expelled smoke. “With a great loss of civilian penises.” 

She passed it back to Misty. Misty looked at Cordelia for her opinion, but she waved off her concerns, so she drank in another deep hit from the joint. “In order for one witch to live forever, many penises must die.” Madison snorted and broke out in a fit of giggles, protesting that it didn’t make any sense but laughing anyway. “You want some?” Misty asked Cordelia, who balked before she considered and then accepted it, also taking a hit on the lit joint. “Take it easy there, cowgirl. We don’t want to have to carry you back to the car.” 

Coughing, Cordelia’s eyes streamed and ran. “My wife just sent out a legion of alligators to bite off all the penises in the city. If you carry me back to the car, I will have _ earned _ it.” She passed the joint back to Madison. “Huh. I do feel a lot better.” She tilted her head at Misty. “I didn’t know you smoked.”

“I’m growing my own in the greenhouse.”

“You  _ what? _ ” Cordelia demanded as Madison gasped, “Since  _ when? _ Why didn’t I know about this?” Cordelia glared at her and she fell silent. 

Misty shrugged. “Figured all the truths ought to come out right now.” Madison gave her the joint again. She rolled it between her fingers and sucked in a deep breath. “I know you said violence is bad, Delia,” she uttered, passing it to the Supreme again, “but I think those fuckers really deserved it… and the one from last night.” 

“I would agree with that,” Cordelia confirmed. She started to laugh for no reason at all. 

“Okay, that’s enough for you—we’re not going to explain to your students why you’re pissing yourself laughing.” Misty took the joint away from her. It had nearly vanished. She vanquished it in the dirt. “We gotta stay up here long enough for her to sober up. She’s gonna make a huge fool of herself.” She looked over at Madison. “But—I mean, you don’t have to stay, if you don’t want to.”

Madison shrugged, giving a lopsided smirk. “I don’t mind. I want to,” she said, and even though she felt buzzed, she meant it. “Thank you, Misty.” It was an earnest, honest gratitude.

Misty grinned in return. “You’re welcome, Maddie.” 


End file.
